Ballmer says Vista likely to be later....

[bigandy]

How many consumers actually buy an Operating System? From my experience, it's a fairly small number, most people just buy a computer.

When Windows 95 was launched, it was $180 FV or $90 upgrade. and they sold 1.3 million boxed "off the shelf" copies within the first two months. it went on to sell almost 46 million boxes - and of that, 20 or so million were boxed.

So, in conclusion, quite a few. However, 98, Me, 2k, and XP have never been able to match Windows 95 and it's furious sales that drove MS' sales up 46% (along with Office 95).

I think a huge amount of people will buy this when (if) it finally arrives.

But I won't. And all my Windows based friends will be so dissapointed.

I'll just tell them how i remember picking up a pc magazine in 1994, aged 12, and reading about the Next Big Thing - the object file system. Now, I'm double that age, and I'm still reading about it. Only it's called WinFS, and still has bugger all chance of shipping before the end of the decade!


This whole thing is so funny

 

[mkrishnan]

When Windows 95 was launched, it was $180 FV or $90 upgrade. and they sold 1.3 million boxed "off the shelf" copies within the first two months. it went on to sell almost 46 million boxes - and of that, 20 or so million were boxed.

I got my parents to buy me Win95 almost immediately after it came out, yeah. I remember being really excited about it. And I think that was also the peak of Windows rawking... Win2k with its stability was "good" but it was nothing like the deal that Win95 was when it came out. There weren't that many viruses, it mostly worked, and this was also before the IE integration stuff got silly....

 

[0098386]

Does Vista exist? I mean really exist, or was it something to get Windows people excited that MS really are still working on something other than games consoles. I think it was all a big coverup. Not anymore, they have begun work on something.

Then again my tinfoil hat just blew off.

 

[mkrishnan]

Then again my tinfoil hat just blew off.

The existence of the public beta would put it at being almost as big of a hoax as the lunar landing, if it were indeed to be a hoax!

And psssh... hairpins were invented for situations exactly like this one, Jimmi. Do NOT lose the hat!

 

[ReanimationLP]

I know why its being delayed!!!!

Because the f***ing newest Beta they put out wont install right.

I'm still trying. >.>'

 

[stoid]

Well, anything to hide that hair.

What hair?

 

[MyLeftNut]

Apples response?

It'll be interesting to see how Apple respond to the delay. Do they release Leopard in January in a blaze of publicity or hang on until Vista ships and then blow them out of the water?

 

[shadowmoses]

This is getting ridiculous, I really feel for the poor suckers still using XP its been what 5 odd years since its release.......

Microsoft are blatently waiting to see what amazing things leopard has to offer so they can copy a few of its main features.....Hopefully Steve will put some heavy copyrights on the enw features stopping M$ in its tracks....

ShadoW

 

[Fukui]

It'll be interesting to see how Apple respond to the delay. Do they release Leopard in January in a blaze of publicity or hang on until Vista ships and then blow them out of the water?

I think apple will do whatever it wants regardless of vista. Vista has got eye candy, but its basically being slapped together as fast as possible, so usability is gonna be in the toilet. We'll also see about the bugs too...

I predict April 2007 = Leopard.
And Feb 2007 = Vista Cruiser.

 

[matticus008]

I predict April 2007 = Leopard.
And Feb 2007 = Vista Cruiser.

Well, one thing is for sure. Viruses won't stand a chance of bringing down Vista Cruiser...

 

[ReanimationLP]

God I hope they do delay it, as it needs quite a bit of work still.

For the record, it took me over 8 hours to get Vista to finally boot right. o.o'

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=204767

 

[Thomas Veil]

This is getting ridiculous, I really feel for the poor suckers still using XP its been what 5 odd years since its release.......

Microsoft are blatently waiting to see what amazing things leopard has to offer so they can copy a few of its main features.....Hopefully Steve will put some heavy copyrights on the enw features stopping M$ in its tracks....

ShadoW

Well, you can't copyright an idea, only the implementation of that idea. That's why Vista's Sidebar doesn't look exactly like Dashboard, even though it's very much the same concept.

Good point about MS possibly waiting to imitate Leopard, though.

And don't feel sorry for those "poor suckers" who've been using XP for five years. They've been free to switch to OS X at any time. If they haven't done so, they've gotten just what they deserve.

 

[mkrishnan]

What hair?

Bill Gates' hair. Under the fez. LOL it took me like two minutes to figure out what you were talking about. *slinks out of thread*

 

[nbs2]

I got my parents to buy me Win95 almost immediately after it came out, yeah. I remember being really excited about it. And I think that was also the peak of Windows rawking... Win2k with its stability was "good" but it was nothing like the deal that Win95 was when it came out. There weren't that many viruses, it mostly worked, and this was also before the IE integration stuff got silly....

Man....I remember when it came out. I finally got my dad to upgrade from our Kaypro PC (bonus points if you can tell me how fast it was and what the toggle switch in the back did) to a HP Pavillion with a P133....The thing about W95 was that it was such a departure from W3.1, which everybody used, it was a revolution. The others have just been remodeling of the same. Even Vista looks the same. It will take a whole new interface for people to go MS wild like they did in 95...

Man...W95.....I remember that Weezer video on the Install CD and how since we didn't have cable, that was the closest we came to MTV....I hated them so much after the 1342nd time I watched it. But, my sisters who won't listen to anything that isn't in the hip-hop section still love that song...

 

[aristobrat]

It will take a whole new interface for people to go MS wild like they did in 95...

I bet I'm not the only one that "made the switch" because learning a new interface like OS X was a lot more fun than waiting around to see if Microsoft would throw us anything new (interface wise).

 

[conditionals]

*falls over laughing*

Vista - It aint ever gonna ship.

Pick between your choice of 2 replies!

a) Yes it will.

b) Do you mean because by the time it is finally ready, they will have invented instand teleport postage that renders the concept of 'shipping' redundant? HAHA ZOMG LOL VISTA SUXORZ.

 

[mkrishnan]

Man...W95.....I remember that Weezer video on the Install CD and how since we didn't have cable, that was the closest we came to MTV....I hated them so much after the 1342nd time I watched it. But, my sisters who won't listen to anything that isn't in the hip-hop section still love that song...

I remember vaguely that there was a music video on the CD. Was it really Weezer? Was it the Buddy Holly song?

(I also predominate the hip-hop section but I have a soft spot in my heart for that song, Al Gore-esque claims to have invented emo aside)

 

[superbovine]

that's bad news for developers who wanted to sell vista software and upgrades. i wonder how long they can wait?

naaa just means more time to test

 

[notjustjay]

Well, it's not like Apple was ever immune to the problem. Copland, anyone?

But clearly, the reason they keep delaying Vista/Longhorn/Vienna/Blackcomb is this: They keep having long committee meetings to figure out what its codename should be...

 

[G99]

How many consumers actually buy an Operating System? From my experience, it's a fairly small number, most people just buy a computer.

Very true. Those hilarious "PC World" ads in the UK come to mind. They only sell Windows on their machines. And they're cheesy voices, and the people in the ad thinking they actually know what they're talking about makes the ads a laugh every-time I see them.
"Buy this Fujistu-Siemens laptop with WIRELESS technology!"

 

[Abstract]

Microsoft are blatently waiting to see what amazing things leopard has to offer so they can copy a few of its main features.....Hopefully Steve will put some heavy copyrights on the enw features stopping M$ in its tracks....

I don't get why people still think this. They can't even finish the features they originally wanted to cram into Vista, so what thinks MS is waiting for Leopard?

All in due time. They're still working in copying some of Jaguar in there first, then they move on to Panther, and then finally Tiger's Dashboard and all this metadata stuff. After that, maybe in 2009, they'll go back and look at Leopard and take a look at what else they can copy.

So no, they're not waiting for Leopard to drop. They're just not very good at getting things to work.

 

[notjustjay]

I don't get why people still think this. They can't even finish the features they originally wanted to cram into Vista, so what thinks MS is waiting for Leopard?

Exactly. It wouldn't make sense anyway. Microsoft is supposedly waiting for the commercial release of Leopard so that they can... what? Stand in line at the Apple store, run home and install it? Whip together a duplicate feature overnight? Rush it through lab testing, regression testing, user trials? Recall their gold master DVD and burn a new one with the new copied features?

If the release is in January, the code complete phase was probably 3-6 months earlier. No new features will have been added since that time. Anything newer will come in the form of a service pack.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do Windows service packs ever add any features? It seems to me that the last two for XP have mainly been security fixes.

 

[mkrishnan]

Do Windows service packs ever add any features? It seems to me that the last two for XP have mainly been security fixes.

I'm not such an expert anymore, but I think they do. I think major DirectX type upgrades have come as part of service packs, and I think XP got its built-in firewall in a service pack, didn't it?

Also part of my suspicion is based on the fact that many pieces of software, particularly for NT4 and Win2k, are very specific about which service pack level you must be at -- and if they were merely security / bug fixes, it seems like it wouldn't be this way.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm not such an expert anymore, but I think they do. I think major DirectX type upgrades have come as part of service packs, and I think XP got its built-in firewall in a service pack, didn't it?

Also part of my suspicion is based on the fact that many pieces of software, particularly for NT4 and Win2k, are very specific about which service pack level you must be at -- and if they were merely security / bug fixes, it seems like it wouldn't be this way.

I suppose I'm comparing them to the four major upgrades we've seen to OSX since the release of XP. Beyond that, Apple is constantly making under-the-hood improvements with the fractional releases. Microsoft, it seems, really only does the latter. They're on a much longer cycle for major new releases and even those, they have a hard time meeting without retreating significantly on the promised features. It just never fails to amaze me how slowly Microsoft moves on the OS revision front compared to Apple, which throws far less resources at it.